


The Burning Wait

by tragicallywicked



Series: Jasper & Alice Verses [6]
Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alice has a lot of tattoos, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternative Universe for sure, Every scar on your soulmate is a new tattoo on you, F/M, Human AU, Jalice, Jalice Week, JaliceWeek20, Magical Tattoos, Romantic Soulmates, Scars, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, a shitton of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27064777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tragicallywicked/pseuds/tragicallywicked
Summary: Soulmates shared a mysterious kind of bond. It exceeded what people grasped of the afterlife or evolution. But it was an understood, accepted, and proved fact that one would earn a tattoo where their soulmate underwent an affliction. One side bared the scar whilst the other displayed a tattoo. For the day they would meet, those wounds and marks would forever award their connection.
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale
Series: Jasper & Alice Verses [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921054
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31
Collections: Jalice Week 2020





	The Burning Wait

**Author's Note:**

> Two days ago I was struggling with this prompt and then yesterday making moodboads it just sunk to me what I wanted it to be. As always while I write the characters lead me up and take me to unimaginable places. This ended up longer than I had foreseen it but I'm loving the sweetness of this relationship and I hope that so will you!
> 
> Day two of JaliceWeek20: Soulmates AU
> 
> PS.: I took the AU part really seriously.

"They must be doing it on purpose." Alice Cullen railed, furious and worried. The brunette guarded with exasperation as another tattoo began fading in on her skin. "It's a well-known fact any injury or scar causes tattoos on your soulmates."

"Have you considered it's something they can't help?" Edward, her older brother, eyed his wife across the room as he conversed.

Isabella Cullen had nothing but a single tattoo, set across her forearm, from the time Edward had broken the limb as a kid. Edward, hence, had arms and legs filled with emblems. The tattoo was always proportional to the harm. A fact that alone troubled Alice, given the dimension of hers. Edward was fortunate that his wife and soulmate was merely _inept_.

Soulmates shared a mysterious kind of bond. It exceeded what people grasped of the afterlife or evolution. But it was an understood, accepted, and proved fact that one would earn a tattoo where their soulmate underwent an affliction. One side bared the scar whilst the other displayed a tattoo. For the day they would meet, those wounds and marks would forever award their connection.

"It's not like Bella's injuries. Sure, you will get one every other week, but they're always small. Bumps along the road." Alice's best friend had always been clumsy since their youth. It became clear, when they were fourteen, that Edward was Bella's soulmate. She was regularly getting hurt and he kept on getting tattoos the same day. Alice's tattoos were not like her brother's. They were immense, and the most beautiful kind.

There was no proven theory about it. But some speculated that a tattoo's elegance was proportional to the pain bore at the end of the thread.

It concerned Alice the most.

When the butterfly across her chest showed up, it was almost as she could see him, open heart at an operating table. That one had given her the most immense twinge. She often felt pain as the figures began stamping on her skin. No one else ever reported pain with their tattoos. That remained on the side of the coin that carried the scar. But some of them had made Alice's body physically hurt.

"Maybe I'm losing them." She considered with Bella when the chest one showed up, with a desperate sob.

For months she believed her theory might be correct. No other tattoo had shown up for weeks on end. Alice, covered in her soulmate's marks already, had praised and hoped anxiously for something new to show.

Until another one did. Six months later.

It was small, a simple faded drawing on her elbow.

A scratch—she figured. Alice had never been so excited about a tattoo before. But how could she not? Meant they were alive.

Her guess was that her soulmate would either recognize her immediately or have the toughest time figuring it was her. But she could do the job for them both. She could trace where all the scars would be, for she knew them in her own body. And then there was her own scars.

Unlike her soulmate, Alice had two scars.

One was a thin line where her appendix used to be—she had to have it removed just two years ago. But how many people had their appendix removed? That made it the wild guess.

The other one was a tattoo Alice had right below her right breast, on her ribcage.

Back in college, she had gone to a bar with a friend, Rosalie Hale, and just as they left it, a group of men tried to attack them. Alice put herself in front of Rose, ready to pepper spray them, even though she was the smallest of the two—the blonde one was clearly who they were targeting, and in the commotion ended up with a stab to her torso.

The attackers panicked with the blood and fled. Although they were identified and captured, Alice almost didn't make it. She had to guess that had to be a large one on her soulmate's body. Along with the appendix, she would be sure of it.

The thing was, they were all easily concealable tattoos.

She did spend her young adult years blindly into that search. They were never the right person, men or women, and ended up being mindless sexual adventures.

At twenty-six, she grew tired of that and settled for the fact she might never meet them.

"They're probably living in like Alaska or something." She mocked one Christmas, unaware it was a very similar place.

In July the following year, she flew to Norway to be Rosalie's maid of honor. The woman was marrying a guy she'd met in Ukraine. The couple had relocated to Norway just a year before and now that they were tying the knot, Alice could come and help.

The wedding wasn't until the fall, but Alice had much to help Rosalie plan. She ran an online business with Edward and Bella, and they could go hold up the fort while she planned a wedding and visited that Nordic paradise.

"This is the girl who saved my life!" That's how Rosalie had introduced Alice to her fiancé Emmett and half their family that had lived there. Rosalie was American, but they had stationed there for years now. Her father worked at a Norwegian technology company with branches in the US, so fifteen years before, he was already moving the Hales there.

Emmett was half American half Ukrainian but had never stepped foot in the States before. They were planning to change that by moving to New York after the honeymoon. Alice, who lived out in Brooklyn, didn't mind the idea at all. The fiancé seemed to be head over heels for Rosalie, and given her work as a model, it would be great for her career if she moved back to America, where she'd gone to college. Emmett was ready to follow whichever his future wife wanted to go. It was fortunate they had found each other.

"I have you to thank then, Alice." Emmett squeezed her with the biggest bear hug, much to Alice's amusement, right before they all set to have dinner. The guy was the hugest person she had met, and Alice was this pixie woman, so it was sure a laughable sight.

"She's exaggerating, alright." She tried to trail off, knowing a story was bound to come.

"That is bullshit!" Rosalie shook her head, and the laugh was replaced by a solemn look. Alice knew there was no escaping the story now. "We were leaving the bar by the campus to walk to our dorm. It had been such a fun karaoke night! We probably had more drinks than we could handle, but when the three guys approached us, Alice was so fast! She picked out a pepper spray out of nowhere and got between them and me so quickly. I seriously don't even want to imagine what would have happened had she not been so quick."

"Rose tells me you got stabbed in the process?" Emmett inquired, making Alice nod.

"She was in the hospital for two whole months. Scared the shit out of us." The night still triggered nightmares on both women. But their sisterhood and strength as friends had got them through it.

"I didn't see one had a knife. Got a punctured lung and fifteen stitches." She explained, Emmett and Rosalie's appalled family listening to the tale and filling them with questions.

There was a movement on the end of the table that caught everyone's eyes. A blonde man that had been sitting there quietly throughout the dinner. He shifted uncomfortably with the revelations and mumbled something to himself before speaking up. He was across from Alice but a few seats down. Their gazes could still meet with ease in the table's distance. They hadn't really met eyes until then, but he had been observing her throughout the event. Her heart undeniably ricocheted when her orbs met his. Felt almost as if they had seen before, once upon a dream.

"Excuse me to ask, Alice, did you have your appendix removed two years ago?" How could he know that?

The whole table seemed to figure it out as quickly as the two of them did. One for Alice had never hid the tattoos that spread across her body, and they all had taken care look that evening of how many she actually had. The Hale also knew how many scars Jasper, the quiet blonde cousin Rosalie adored with all her heart, actually had. They often joked how his soulmate would be a canvas full of tattoos because of him. Yet, it had not crossed any of their minds of the coincidence that evening. At least not until Jasper had asked so firmly about a scar—and along with it a tattoo, that would be likely hidden to soulmates eyes.

The whole table had been holding their breaths for Alice to respond, all eyes anxious for the resolution. But it was for the two souls, at last finding one another, that the world seemed to halt and turn the other way around.

"Y-Yes. I did."

* * *

They were left alone after dinner. Their family's murmurs and cheers were still widely clear in the other room, where they pretended to busy celebrating Rose and Emmett's engagement and to chat about the preparations. In fact, all eyes were casually turning the way of the slightly cracked open door.

There was so much they wanted to ask each other, so much that they wanted to talk. And yet, they were in silence, sitting next to each other on the couch, taking the sheer settling sensation of having found their soulmate. 

"You've kept me waiting a long time." She told him after a while, a smile dancing on her lips. Alice imagined the man was not the chatterbox—from the quietness she had witnessed before, which she didn't really mind.

"I'm sorry, ma'am." He beamed lightly, facing her then with a heartfelt gaze that he sincerely was sorry—probably for more than just the wait.

"I was deeply concerned for your well-being, I'll tell you this much." They both could enjoy her humor, chuckling in sync.

"My profession got me at high risks. I'm sorry that it got you this many marks." She could sense the genuine sorrow on his voice and Alice wondered if he didn't appreciate the tattoos.

"I don't mind them... I was worried about you, that's all." For long, she had complained about the amount, indeed, but it was entirely due to the fact she was undoubtedly worried her soulmate would be in real life-threatening danger. "You don't like them?"

"Oh, I think they are beautiful on you." Jasper was quick to respond, sensing she had misunderstood. "I am sorry for the concern all these years. Had I known before, I would definitely have assured you it wasn't all that bad."

"What you do work with?" There wasn't a profession Alice could make that would put him through such misery.

"I train horses. It involves a lot of bad falls." Jasper clarified as Alice mumbled a surprised ah.

"What about the chest one?"

"One of the horses stepped on me after the fall. I was stupid. I should have turned to protect myself. Still have a bad lung until now... It was a pretty bad—"

"Open heart surgery." Alice surprised even herself with the memory. She had seen it then when the tattoo first began to show: a clear vision of him. "You nearly died."

"How did you know?" He wondered for a moment if Rosalie had told her about him then.

"I saw it, the clear image of your surgery when the tattoo began to show." She explained, unconcerned, how such things weren't typical for soulmates. "And I felt it too. The pain was so excruciating."

Much to her surprise, Jasper seemed to comprehend it.

"I must have been pretty bad. I wasn't withholding any emotion." Her puzzled gaze made him chuckle. "In Norwegian legends, they say some souls, older ones, carry skills that go beyond inexplicable when it comes to their soulmates. I felt your anxiety and your worry for years on end. You saw my danger and misery with your own eyes." He imagined perhaps even more than once.

Her heart skipped when his fingers brushed against hers, and Alice felt a carrousel of emotions that weren't her own but still overwhelmingly happy and serene.

"How did you—?"

"I can share my emotions with you." And he could manipulate them too, but that was a talk for another time.

Alice reminded them of a dream she had once, her face buried on a tall man's chest. She couldn't see his face, but she could hear his voice calling her name as they watched the northern lights.

"I've seen us together before." Alice came to the realization then how her side of their connection worked.

"Not all soulmates are like this. Just the ones that have endured the most."

* * *

They spent the months that followed together. Alice found that life was exactly how it needed to be between planning Rosalie's wedding and getting to know her soulmate.

Jasper and her connected in ways she couldn't explain. They weren't lovers, at least not just yet, as she had seen it was bound to happen. But they moved in superb sync. Often, they shared afternoons of endless talks about life, the past, and, ultimately, the future.

"I don't see myself parting from you again," Jasper confessed one day, as they laid down together by the bed in her hotel. She had been showing him her favorite songs, so they were shoulder to shoulder, sharing a headphone.

Alice listened to that carefully as her fingers played a dance with his hand.

"I don't want you to." She said quietly. He could sense her worry, her fear:

How would this work? Alice had to go back home to New York, and Jasper couldn't just drop his entire life to move across the ocean.

"There are horses to train everywhere." He told her, in sheer amusement. He couldn't grasp her concern. The choice was obvious to him.

"Not in New York."

"I'll drive up to Jersey." Jasper tone was playful, but Alice was aware of him being dead serious.

"You can't just drop everything for me."

"Of course I can."

* * *

That had been precisely what he did. The tickets were bought for a week after Rosalie and Emmett's wedding so they would fly to America together. He has also upgraded her ticket to first class. Jasper Whitlock didn't swim in wealth, but his family had a comfortable position. They had invented, five years before, a healthy bio meal for horses in training. That with Rose's father IT skills had really kicked in as a family business. Gave Jasper a comfortable position to try and bring the idea now to the states.

They were creating an app that allowed trainers to keep track, get tips, and purchase their products all in one platform for animal care.

Jasper was coordinating the operation as the wisest would be to launch it in the US. That gave him the ways and means to be with Alice.

* * *

It was the winter when they became lovers.

Jasper came by her place to bring her a pair of extra socks. The night before, they had been texting when she complained to the heater seemingly broken—he was there to check that too. He had gotten her a pair with reindeer ears and a red nose that popped out of the sock. Alice beamed at its cuteness.

She laced her arms around his neck and just pulled Jasper in for the kiss.

They had been waltzing around this for months, getting to know each other, finding all depths of their bond. Except for one. It was easy for both of them to fall into something they had been withholding for so long. What followed that first kiss was a mess of sensations and discoveries. Turned out, their touch could bring a lot more than shared emotions and visions of the future. It seemed they didn't even need to touch so their souls would connect in such breathtaking ways.

Alice and Jasper made love all night long, in all forms and ways. Rough, fast and needy. Sweet and slow. Deep and passionate. They found all manners their souls could connect until their bodies, worn out, laid next to each other.

His eyes fell on her body when the early morning rose lazily, taking in the marks his scars had drawn on her body. His thumb tracing each of them as the memories of the happenings returned to him. The gentle touch on the ones that covered her thighs arose her, and the hunger Alice still had for Jasper.

She did her own mapping of his skin, touching every scar with her lips. Biting the memory of the two tattoos she had given him. The large one on his chest didn't feel so much painful anymore for her to remember. It was a nice drawing that settled on his ribcage, large and so attractive.

"I thought I had tired you out." He joked when her lips, anxious with lust, captured his again.

"I don't think I'll ever be tired of you." Alice had told him before she devoured him repeatedly.

Sex had been meaningless before they met and they only found out, after that night, how they both would never be able to be apart again, in any shape or form.

* * *

When the first few locks of her hair turned pink, one morning during the summer of the following year, they knew exactly what it meant.

Alice was panicking. Even though she had seen it in a vision before, she hadn't realized it was coming so soon. She wasn't prepared to be a mother. She would be a hot mess of a mother.

Jasper fell on the father part so quickly.

He would go to bed with piles of books on parenting, reading late with those stupidly sexy glasses that she adored. Jasper was so patient, too, with her moods. They were living together since the winter, so he had learned a few tricks. With the pregnancy, he would bring her snacks, chocolates, little trinkets he would see on the street that reminded him of her. One night he got baby shoes.

For the first time, Jasper thought he had messed up something because Alice wouldn't stop crying.

"These damn hormones." She told him and, only then, he saw her beam, clutching the shoes tight against her chest.

On the following winter, they welcomed the sweet Charlotte Anne Whitlock. On December 31st, the last day of the year, they celebrated their party growing. Alice had desperately watched for months on end how her soulmate would be a much better parent, only to see herself fall into the mother character so easily after their daughter was in her arms.

She shortened her hair after the baby, getting a more practical cut that was just below her earlobe. Jasper had a not-so-secret admiration for it. He would continuously mumble in her ear how sexy she looked. It made her ultimately decide to keep it short, even when a year into the cut, the light blue color took the points of her hair.

"Another one you've managed." She complained to Jasper, although Alice wasn't upset by it at all.

"What did you expect? I feel all we do when we're not with Charlie is to roll around on this bed."

"I do maintain a company, thank you very much." Alice mocked, spreading kisses across his abdomen.

"A businesswoman and a mom, hot." Jasper took her lips instead, rolling over her.

"That is exactly how we got another baby in, you see."

"Well, now there's no need to worry about having some more fun then." And so the loving never ceased.

Oliver Grant Whitlock was born in the fall, exactly five years after his parents had first met. They became a party of four then, and both their families pointed out it might be a good time to seal their deal and get a wedding up after all.

* * *

They married a year later. Oliver and Charlotte walking hand in hand down the aisle while their mother followed behind in the most beautiful wedding dress.

Jasper didn't hold his tears while he gazed at that sight or when they exchanged their vows.

Nobody was shocked when three months after the honeymoon, Alice's hair grew pink locks once more.

"You're like a baby factory." A much pregnant Rosalie told her then.

"Says the mother-to-be—and of twins!"

Both of them gave birth in July. Alice thought it was fitting that their summer baby would be named Summer Grace Whitlock, and Jasper would agree to anything his soulmate wanted.

They promised themselves to close the factory after baby number three came along. By the time all would be grown-up, the couple figured they might be too tired to be traveling around, so they decided to do it right away.

The five-traveling party toured Europe, Asia and settled their trips in Norway, where it all began.

When Alice and Jasper were camping with their kids to watch the northern lights, her face buried against his chest, she remembered that first vision of him. The memory made her tighten the grip around his waist. Back then, Alice wouldn't have foreseen, in a billion years, how happy she would become with Jasper.

"Alice." He mumbled, just like in the vision.

But this time, when she looked up, Alice saw his face and the world changed again like it always did when their eyes met.


End file.
